My Map Ideas. Worth the work or not?

First of all, I'm new to this. I've been playing around in Hammer a little bit, but I'm by no means very good, so these maps are still a long way off.

I've been getting map ideas. Map ideas that are probably fairly common, but that I've thought through in a way to make them as good as possible. Here are my ideas. Tell me how they could improve, if it's been done, and above all, would you play on it?

2 for now:

Arena-Colosseum
I imagine this has been done. It's not too creative, kind of a logical map idea to have. It's a big, round arena, Roman Colosseum Ruins style, with the cap in the very center. The audience stands are easily accessible to every class, and are tiered. The circular nature of the map would allow scouts to constantly be running, but never running away. At the very highest edge there are archways running around close to the wall that could be a viable sniper/sentry perch, but have little protection, so spies would actually be useful in arena by clearing these (although demomen and soldiers would probably have an easier time). Being a small map, the spawns would be close together, but not so close that you can kill each other out of the gate. I would probably put some loose columns in random places for demomen, soldiers and scouts to perch on. Heavies would have an advantage in that they could probably hit most of the map from anywhere, but a disadvantage in that there aren't any corners, so people can always get behind you. Medics would be absolutely VITAL, enough to warrant constant protection. It isn't as fleshed out as my other idea, but making an arena map in an actual arena seems like it would be easy to implement and balance, and would result in quick and action packed rounds, instead of having people wait ten and fifteen minutes to respawn because the map is so big and people can hide. However, because of the utter chaos this map will have, there will be a few little shelters here and there to catch your breath, and the spawn rooms will remain inaccessible to the other team. ADDED : Walls to separate sniper ridges, 7 columns in the middle. Sketch above.
CTF-Feudal
A larger, more intricate, and more open CTF map that’s comparable to 2fort. I know the medieval castle thing has been done before to mixed reception, but if I do it right this could be one of the best CTF maps ever. Two castles on either side of a large field, with a high wall in the middle of said field. The castle features a large throne room, and the intelligence is on the throne. There are three entrances to the throne room, two in the back from staircases leading up to the roof and one in the front easily accessible from the castle entrance. Because a large, easily fortifiable room can encourage unbeatable turtling (Like CTF Well), I'm thinking of putting a long dining table sort of thing in the throne room that spies can crawl under to wait for an opening. A sturdy table cloth will make it so Pyros won't be able to Spy Check unless they go under the table themselves. It will also be lovely. There will be nice little Tapestries of the classes or something on the walls.

The main floor of each castle will consist of two long hallways at either end, with an entrance to the basement in the back. They don't connect, the basement entrance is against the back castle wall, and the large throne room separates the Hallways, but cannot be entered from them. The hallways will both enter into a large room at the front, separated from the treasure room by a wall you can walk around, and able to be entered directly from the door.

The aforementioned basement will consist of long hallways directly below the ones above them that border the sides of a large room with some dividers and random boxes and things. Directly facing that room is one of the Team spawn/Resupply points. These rooms will be filled with treasure, and if I can pull it off will have treasure chests instead of lockers. Another Hallway at the left end (facing the opposite castle) of the big room is very long and narrow, comparable to the sewers in 2fort. It might have some tiny rooms attached to it where spies can rest, because when cloaked the hallway will be narrow enough for the other team to bump into you fairly often. The hallway will be a dungeon of some sort, with the small rooms being open cells, and will continue all of the way up into the wall in the middle, where the other teams dungeon can be accessed by going to the other end of the equally narrow wall interior. Moats around the perimeter of each castle might have a pipe or something leading to one of the dungeon cells unless I decide four entrances to the castle is too much.

The roof, accessible from the back of the throne room, is mostly flat except for three large towers. One of them will be rectangular, and too tall to be much more than scenery, with another Team spawn inside. The spawn entrance will be on the side of the tower that doesn’t face the field, so snipers can’t spawn kill from the other castle. The other two towers will be round and tall with a flat top, ideal for snipers. These are those round little turret towers you always see on medieval castles, one on each side, symmetrically aligned. The tops of these towers will have enough room for about 3-4 people, but nothing more than those people’s bodies. Every class except for scouts and heavies will have a reason to be there from time to time, especially snipers, soldiers, and engineers. Demos can increase their range by standing up there, and medics and pyros can heal and spycheck the snipers and such. If I can figure out ladders (are there ladders in TF2?) the tops of the towers will be reached by ladder. Because of this, and the fact that the top of the towers are small, backstabs will be difficult to pull off, but if the people up there are severely hindering your team, well worth the risk. The viability of dodging rockets and snipers from the other side is tied to how many people are on top. A sentry, turret and dispenser will take up almost all of the room, but the turret will be able to aim down onto the field below, which is devastating to the other team. In essence, these towers leave you vulnerable as any sort of ranged or defensive class, but are extremely effective due to their 360 degree visibility, allowing you to pick people off your own roof if needed, as well as the other team’s roof. The sheer range afforded by being high off the ground will also be valuable to snipers who are perched up there.

The portcullis will serve as a bridge over the moat, and will also serve as an important chokepoint for demos to sticky. On the right edge of the field (coming out of the castle), directly in front of the castle, will be three small little peasant cottages of varying heights in a skewed line leading to the wall. Two of the cottages will be empty, but the one closest to the castle will contain a resupply room without a spawn point in it. My goal with the cottages is for a scout to be able to jump off his team’s roof, from cottage roof to cottage roof, and then onto the top of the wall. After running to the opposite end of the wall, he can jump from the other team’s cottages to their roof, run down to the throne room, grab the intel, and then do it all in reverse on the way back. In other words, whichever team controls the wall has two more viable entrance and escape routes into the opposing castle.

The wall is important. It’s what makes this map very different from 2fort. You could even think of it as a central control point. Two staircases at either end lead to the top of the wall from both sides. The wall is long, narrow, and you can walk on top of it as I mentioned before. In the middle of the wall is a medium sized circular platform with a sort of Gazebo like roof with windows. Engineers can defend the wall from here relatively safe from snipers as long as they avoid the windows, but probably only two engineers could viably set up camp there. They cannot aim their sentries toward the castles from the gazebos, only towards either end of the wall as a counter to escaping scouts. The wall is also hollow. Underneath the medium sized circular platform is a medium sized circular room with entries on either side of the wall. Perpendicular to the entrances will be long hallways inside the wall that have an entrance to a dungeon at either end. The team that controls the wall will have access to the scout cottage jumping method as well as direct entrance into the opposing dungeon. The team that doesn’t have the wall will either have to use the front gate or the underwater entrance, both of which require passing through the wall to access. If the other team has the wall, cloaked spies are your saviors. They shouldn’t go lone wolf, but instead coordinate their efforts so they can clear the entire wall defense as quickly and easily as possible. Demos can also shoot grenades through the Gazebo windows.

The wall is in some cases more important than the flag. Heavies are primarily tasked with defending and capturing the wall on this map, as they are not viable for capping the intel with the large distance they would have to cover. There are no medkits on the wall, all health comes from medics or dispensers. Because of the wall, captures will either happen very quickly or very slowly. If it ends up being very quickly, I might extend the caps to win to 4 or 5. The wall and the gazebo are the only things causing blind spots for snipers as far as exterior areas. If you’re right up against the wall, opposing snipers will probably not see you at all. The field will be as wide as the castles, and as long as about ten of the cottages accounting for negative space and the wall. It’s big, it’s beautiful, imaginary cows will want to graze on it, and newbs will want to use it to travel, but the high sniper perches make that nearly impossible. Because I think having a forest border the field would be sort of visually confining, I’m thinking about putting the whole thing on a plateau so that the thing restricting you isn’t impenetrable trees, but a couple hundred foot drop with a nice medieval vista below.

I have other, less fleshed out ideas. The one with the most potential right now is a CP map that has the attacking team ascend a tower with a CP on each floor. I don’t want to take up lots of threads, so if I develop them further, or when I eventually have sketches, screenshots and downloads, I will edit the OP. I know it’s hard to visualize without sketches or anything, they’re coming soon, but I mainly want to know if these maps sound fun. If you read the whole post and have questions, I will try my best to answer them and take into account any obvious problems with the current plans. If you want to discuss your own maps, start your own threads. Just let me know how these can be improved, and if they’re worth putting hours into Hammer for. Thank you. Discuss. The above post was long. I’m sorry. There was a lot to cover.

If the wall is the same height or shorter than the castles, snipers will absolutely dominate in this map. Anyone that takes one step out onto the turf will instantly be headshot.

So, it's important the the middle wall be higher than both castles, or some other artificial means is imposed to limit the power of snipers.

Click to expand...

That's why the underground tunnels into the wall are there. The wall won't be as high as the castles, but high enough to cause significant blind spots for snipers. If people are quick enough out of the gate they should easily be able to get against the wall and be virtually invisible. The snipers are also wide open on those towers. Soldier rockets spell their doom. I think that as long as both teams have snipers, they won't be too overpowered. If they end up being godly I'll find some way to limit them. Most of the classes except for Heavy or maybe Soldier should be able to move quickly enough to dodge. Also, If the sniper towers are high enough, I can make it so they can't see the field in front of their own base, just the other team's field.

Yeah, there is a colleseum type arena map. It has a building in the middle to break it up some which I think was a good idea.

The issues it has.
mainly, players can get into the seating area. Nothing is clipped... So you get stuck on every bench if you are trying to move while fighting. Wayyy to much stuff to try and navigate.

Not that you shouldn't do one, it might be better. But watch out for stuff like that. No fun to die 'cause you got stuck on one bench, then another, then another...
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I like castles. I know there are alot of them and I did an arena one too. I think if it's laid out good that's the biggest thing. Alot of people like castles, some dont, can't please everyone.

I can't say I read through it all, too much to read too early.

But maybe instead of a wall make a canyon that has a bend in it or something. Too many castle levels are just straight in fornt of each other. Be more creative. It would be better for optimizing and would be more interesting imo.

Yeah, there is a colleseum type arena map. It has a building in the middle to break it up some which I think was a good idea.

The issues it has.
mainly, players can get into the seating area. Nothing is clipped... So you get stuck on every bench if you are trying to move while fighting. Wayyy to much stuff to try and navigate.

Not that you shouldn't do one, it might be better. But watch out for stuff like that. No fun to die 'cause you got stuck on one bench, then another, then another...
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I like castles. I know there are alot of them and I did an arena one too. I think if it's laid out good that's the biggest thing. Alot of people like castles, some dont, can't please everyone.

I can't say I read through it all, too much to read too early.

But maybe instead of a wall make a canyon that has a bend in it or something. Too many castle levels are just straight in fornt of each other. Be more creative. It would be better for optimizing and would be more interesting imo.

Click to expand...

Huh, I didn't think of that. I'm keeping the wall, but maybe I could make the Plateau more of an S shape so that the castles aren't directly opposite each other. That would also keep the snipers from being overpowered.

As for the colosseum thing, these are the first ideas I've had. They're not too creative, but they have potential. I don't think the benches will be a problem though, I plan on making the seating more step like.